While the majority of commentary and political focus has remained on the major cuts to agricultural emissions, only with the controversial joint venture between Gresham House and Coillte has the sectional target for Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) come into the spotlight.

The LULUCF sector is distinct from the agricultural sector despite being interlinked in the real world, as it covers soil sequestration and soil carbon losses, along with other activities such as peat extraction and forestry.

While the political fallout of the Gresham House deal with Coillte may be substantive, it indicates more a pathway of things to come rather than an end to such deals.

The issue at present is that the cuts needed in LULUCF to meet the overall targets remain unknown. During the announcements of sectoral targets, this issue looked to be clearly sidestepped by the Minister for Agriculture.

Deferred for 18 months at the time, the announcement of targets was delayed to near the end of 2024 due to an ongoing review of the emissions factors and land use. With the sector emitting 4.8 MtCO2eq, 20% of agriculture’s 23Mt in 2018, it is not a section of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to be overlooked.

While the headlines appearing in Sunday papers may be startling, mentioning cuts of 30% to livestock, these are not the binding 2030 targets but rather the potential direction to reach net-zero by 2050.

The cut to the sector is likely to be between 37% and 58% on the basis of advice to meet the overall target provided to the Government before the sectoral targets were announced.

Others have gone further in proposing that LULUCF should be pushed towards becoming a carbon sink to offset some of the emissions from the other hard to reduce sectors.

Emissions lower than previously estimated

One glimmer of hope is the fact that early research may indicate that the sector’s contribution to warming is less than currently estimated. Emissions from drained peat soils may, in certain circumstances, be less than calculated based on international examples.

Against this however, better mapping and soil identification may increase the area of land classified as drained peat soils, potentially cancelling out lower per hectare emissions.

On the non-peat soils, there may be other good news in that Teagasc’s new carbon flux towers are showing promising results for greater sequestration.

However, more data will be needed to assess the storage of carbon during periods of drought and low rainfall. The results of the review currently being prepared for ministerial eyes may be a mixed bag.

Rewetting

Achieving cuts of up to 58% or even offsetting other sectors will require significant areas of peat to be rewetted, both agricultural and formerly extracted, along with 8,000ha per year of new forestry and likely changes to existing forest management.

Bogs may be rewetted to try and reduce carbon emissions. \ Philip Doyle

Achieving 8,000/ha per year of new forest may prove the biggest challenge, as even prior to the licensing delays brought on by a lack of Department of Agriculture employed ecologists and legal challenges, Ireland has had a history of missed targets. Now, such failures will result in increased pressure on other land uses.

Farmers affected

The first farmers to be affected will be those with insecure land competing for rents and leases, who may now find their main competitors are forestry investors, domestic and foreign, or indeed land owners taking advantage of considerable premia. The second will be farmers on peat soils – how exactly they will be either incentivised or coerced into rewetting remains to be seen. In this too, there is a potential for great competition for land if other large cash rich businesses choose to purchase land to rewet making use of the current wild west of carbon credits.

Finally, no doubt many a farmer who has planted part of their land, normally the poorest, may be concerned as to whether new rules around increasing carbon stocks may result in changes for forest management, especially on those planted on peat.

For those on mineral soils, the biggest immediate concern may be a new land race, which makes the current one sparked by new nitrates rules seem mild, as displaced peatland farmers along with forestry investors compete for the last available land.

More concerning moves may come from the EU Commission, with its plans to integrate LULUCF with the agricultural sector and set binding net-zero targets post-2030.